The present invention relates to a quality assurance system and method, and particularly to a quality assurance system and method that check the quality assurance (QA) of goods on a service provider by a control center via the Internet.
A business model is wellknown as OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer), in which a product is composed of a plurality of components, and produced by several participators. In addition, in the semiconductor industry, wafers must pass a plurality of process stages in an IC (Integrated Circuit) foundry, and may be tested and packed by a service provider, such as a contractor that concentrates to run test and pack business. After the test, pack and quality assurance stages in the service provider, the wafers become finished goods and are shipped to specific destinations or customers.
The quality issue between the participators is difficult to be controlled and monitored, and there is no mechanism for quality assurance management between the participators. In the conventional mechanism, the quality assurance check is performed respectively and independently, that is the customer fully trusts the service provider's quality assurance check, and performs its own quality assurance check by only checking the surface of the goods.
However, there may be mistakes in the service provider. For example, the service provider may use wrong test programs to circuit probe (CP) test the wafers, thereby affecting the yield and increasing related costs. At TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), since there are over 50,000 probe wafers that are externally tested by the service provider, a very high potential risk exists if the service provider misses the standard recipes; also, it will impact the business reputation of TSMC and result in money lost for clients.
In addition, the service provider has a sequence of process stages, and the processed goods may be the only quality assurance check in the final stage. Since there is no effect mechanism for early detection of quality fail in real time, the damage may be relative high and the recovery measure used to recover the failed goods may be complicated if the goods are processed by the wrong recipes.